What am I doing wrong?????????????7 hours on the coast with a fly rod and one hit/catch. It was an 8" speck. I threw every type if fly I had in every bit of the water column i could reach and used every type of presentation that I know. The entire time my kids were with me using jig heads and shrimp. They caught rat reds, sheep head and croaker all day long right next to me while I had nothing. Fish were there and hungry, why would they not hit flies? I literally wore cuts into my fingers from hours of stripping line through them.

Maybe nothing. I have days where my buds, using conventional gear, catch all the fish and my flies never draw a hit. Other days my flies make their plastic and hardware look bad. That's just fishing. One day in St. Charles Bay I was fishing alongside five guys. I was throwing an olive and white Clouser, and they were using artificials and live shrimp under corks. We were all fishing the same part of the same gut. I was catching 80% of the fish. They finally got disgusted and left. They weren't doing anything wrong; the specks just liked craft fur that day. That's fishin'...........

When all else fails, I tie in a popper. Find some deeper water - a cut with shallow, grassy flats on each side or potholes that have sand bottoms and grass growing all around them. Work the popper along the edges of the grass. The trick is to chug the popper hard and FAST. If you work it like in freshwater you won't get a strike. You have you really rip it. If you see a boil under it, don't stop, like you would in freshwater, but chug it even faster. The popper should almost be skipping out of the water. Try this very early and late in the day when the light is low and hang on to your rod.

It could be just a tough day for flies. Rat reds might be the most reliable to take a fly, but even those can take a day off. I wouldn't give up. You tried several patterns. Better days are ahead. Check out some finger protectors for your fingers. Cabelas and others sell them and will keep your fingers intact.

No plans of giving up! I am shopping around for some sun gloves that will also protect my fingers. I will get it together eventually, I just have to get over this costal learning curve. Fly fishing has always ment clear flowing streams in the mountains or texas hill country.

20 pound mono sounds reasonable. I'm a fluorocarbon fan and usually fish a 0X, 16# tippet. I also like using a rapala loop knot to connect the fly to the tippet. None of that is make or break details, I wouldn't think. What are you defining as terrible clarity? That could be an issue, but if they were hitting plastics, they could hit a fly too.

I had a couple of rough outings this summer where my paddletail throwing friends caught good fish in the same water that I got nothing or next to nothing to even take the fly. Last time out, I caught 3 nice flounder sighted flipping along the cord grass plus a barely slot red and some rat reds in the same grassy area while the paddle tail friend managed one red. It kind of goes back and forth like that. Summer might be my least productive and fun season because the heat tends to wear me out pretty soon into the day. Fall is a great time to be a fly fisherman here on the coast.